The Truth About Nighttime Potty Training
Photo by Thinkstock/Getty Images
I haven’t had a full night’s sleep in four months. I expected this when my daughter was a baby, but it came as a shock to me (and my system) that I was up and down with her nearly five times a night at almost two and a half.
Welcome to the world of nighttime potty training.
My girl has been daytime trained since June. We followed the “Oh Crap. Potty Training” method—no diapers, no pull-ups, frequent visits to the potty, and an array of portable potties all over our house—and it worked amazingly well.
But about a month after our daytime training started, my daughter started taking off her diaper at night. “Typically, girls will begin to experiment and try to go diaper-free at night around two-and-a-half years and boys by three years,” says Dr. Wendy Sue Swanson, a pediatrician and Executive Director of Digital Health at Seattle Children’s Hospital. “Once a child starts to control her bladder at night and stay dry, it’s always a good idea—if there’s no resistance from the child—to try nights diaper-free,” she says.
STORY: Doctors Say Let Teens Sleep, Start School Later
Following my girl’s cues, I actively started night training. For about a month, I set my alarm and prompted her to go during the night—a potty was right by her bed, I kept the lights off, and she hardly even woke up. Soon, though, she started waking up on her own when she needed to go. And waking up to tell me about her friends at school. And to get a drink of water. And because she wanted a hug. And being up for the day by 5:30 am. This was a big change for a girl who had slept eleven or twelve hours straight from six months old until her second birthday.
We were both exhausted, especially after nights when she had an accident and it took me an hour to get her back to bed. She was clingy during the day; I was impatient. Naptime on the weekends became a battle. I started to feel like I had done the worst thing possible: I had taught my toddler not to sleep through the night.
“The good news is that most children are able to fall back asleep easily after an overnight awakening,” says Dr. Swanson. But, she warns: “The awakening won’t help their brain-bladder connection mature, it will just keep the bed dry.” I’ve long since stopped waking her up—she does that enough on her own—but surely there is something I can do to help her sleep more soundly now?
STORY: Advice You Should Never Take From Your Parents
Ashley Hickey, specialist and owner of Successful Potty Training, a potty training consulting firm, recommends focusing on what you can control: limiting drinks in the evening, encouraging a full pee right before bed, and making nighttime independent potty use easy.
“If you do all of those things, you shouldn’t be getting up more than once per night,” Hickey says. “It could be that she is getting you up frequently because she enjoys your company.”
STORY: When It Takes a Village Goes Too Far
Lately, I’m trying to be more patient when I hear my daughter’s little feet coming into my room at night. I help her with the business at hand, then try to get her back to bed as fast as possible—and now we’re averaging just one or two wakeups each night. And while the fancy nightlight I purchased to light the way to the independent potty hasn’t yet been the magic bullet I was hoping for, it is at least comforting to have a better sense of what’s normal during this on-going transition.
Plus, there’s this: “Most kids do go back to regular sleep patterns after a few months,” says Jamie Glowacki, author of “Oh Crap. Potty Training.”
One can only hope.
